Category: Poetry

Dying grass tickled her feet, it smelled of roses and damp wood
with a hint of loneliness
that is where she grew her garden.

Amongst the blossoms, she had her favourites,
she watered them more often and put the radio between the three of them – since they say classical music is good for plants.

Because they had large yellow petals that reminded her of the sun,
she scribbled with a permanent marker
smiling faces on them
so they could become her “smiling flowers”

The same way a magician can convince you that
magic is real,
she convinced herself their smiles were genuine –
“see, they don’t come off!” she yells as she wipes their drawn-in smiles with her hand.
and when you ask her what it’s like hanging out with flowers,
she tells you about the peaches and Mozart until midnight
but never about how in her dreams, her friends are human
and they care, too

She is a ballerina, she is beautiful,
and she walks by with her head held high,
yet she takes out a mirror to try and tame the wild curl
that made her ballet teacher so angry when she was seven.
Unless she is behind the thick stage curtains,
she never takes her shoes off,
because she can never take the bruises off either.

She is a ballerina, she is beautiful,
yet she has to break herself in little parts,
tiny enough to fit in the spectator’s gaze.
When she tip-toes on the parquet during a pas-de-deux,
you can hear the friction of his hands against her tutu
but can never hear her weeping for her joints snapping.

She is a ballerina, she is beautiful,
but the most beautiful is that her spine, like reeds,
doesn’t break but twists itself.
Her repaired body has a newfound springiness ;
she uses this strength to maintain her façade
and nurture her pride which survives somewhere in her curved back.

I like to think that Josephina is made of all the pink hues in the early morning sky. Her name could have been Aurora or Dawn, I wondered as I opened my curtains, but then she wouldn’t bear the name of she who cared for me. And every morning I bask in her tender light – it’s her only way now to wish me luck for the day to come.

Under the fold of my dress, I held many flowers,
dozens of roses and beautiful bouquets,
that I dropped one by one all along the way –
they say you need to be able to look back on the road you’ve traveled.

Then I met her,
and I wish I could have given her one of those bouquets,
but the road I’ve walked on was too long,
or our roads crossed later than what was supposed to be,
because I didn’t have any.

His mum taught him how to care for birds so they would happily land in the palm of his hand, without being afraid of his fingers crushing them. But never did she warn him about the dangers of trusting the filthy hands of adults. Andthey tend to have big hands, big hands that are perfect for squeezing every last drop out of the bird’s frail body. (照美)